So yeah, if you know me well then you know I have a slight obsession with owls. A few months ago I stumbled upon an owl-infused blog (see my Blog Report below) and was inspired to integrate my favorite feathery creatures into my Christmas gifts this year.
Owls seem to be everywhere lately – which is both a good and a bad thing for obsessed people like me – so it was easy to find the basics like wrapping paper (mine is from Target). It was a lot of work, but I created 20 of these cute little owl gift tags for the holidays.
I started by drawing the owl outline and the owl belly. Once I was happy with the shape and size, I created a template out of cardstock and proceeded to trace and cut out the shapes. I went with a red and green theme for Christmas, of course!
I bought a set of Martha Stewart holiday paper to make up the feathers of the owl. I tried to stick to my color scheme of red and green and chose sections of the papers that had plenty of color and Christmasy designs.
I bought a Martha Stewart leaf stamp cutter and I’m SO glad I did because it made cutting out all those little “feathers” so easy. I created a peanut-shaped stencil and cut out a bunch of those for the eyes section of the owl’s face.
After I stamped out all the feathers I took an assortment of them and arranged them in four rows of six. I made guidelines on the belly-shaped paper to keep my feathers in line. Then I glued the feathers on row by row starting at the bottom left.
I continued to layer on the feathers one row at a time until I reached the top of the tummy. After all the feathers were glued firmly in place, I turned the belly over and trimmed the top along the wavy edge I created with the template.
I glued the tummy onto the red owl shape, leaving enough room at the top for the eye mask (peanut-shaped) part. The final steps (which I didn’t take pictures of) were to cut out a small yellow diamond shape for the beak and two white circles for eyes.
I drew pupils in the eyes with a black marker and then cut a slit toward the top of the owl’s head to weave ribbon through. Then I wrapped my gifts in my owl-iday wrapping paper and attached the gift tags with curly, complementary ribbons.
I was very happy with the finished product and enjoyed the look of our Christmas tree with all the owl-themed presents stacked up underneath it! And I still have plenty of owl wrapping paper for next year (and maybe even the year after that!)
Like I said, these tags turned out to be a lot of work, but I love the way they came out and I got a lot of compliments on them when everyone received their presents. Now I need to start planning on my holiday gift wrapping plans for next year!
Hope you had a great holiday season … I’ll see you in 2012!
Blog Report: My Owl Barn (MyOwlBarn.com)
Through one of my other favorite blogs, How About Orange (HowAboutOrange.blogspot.com), I found a great DIY tutorial on how to make adorable little owl tags! Once I looked through the tutorial, I started browsing through the other projects and products featured on the site … and I was hooked.
My Owl Barn is an owl lover’s dream. It has tons of craft ideas, printable owl designs and nifty finds from all over. I could seriously browse through the posts for hours.
I love the gift tags that I made this year and hope to get more ideas from this blog for future owl projects. If you’re an owl lover, like me, or simply a lover of crafts, this site is one you should definitely check out!
anna•tomy 